India women may have gained victory in the ODI series against New Zealand, but the heavy loss at the T20I series-opener came out as a disappointment. New Zealand woman defeated the Indian team by 23 runs and bundled out India with a winning score of 159 for four.
This thrilling match from Wellington witnessed India being thrashed by White Ferns at 136/10 and Indian team collapsed despite the spectacular performance by Smriti Mandhana.
Lea Tahuhu from New Zealand bagged the title of Player of The Match as she had a shown stellar performance with 3/20 from four overs. As from New Zealand, Katie Gurrey and Rosemary Mair made their debut with this match and the team secured the series lead, and on the other hand, Priya Punia was also a debutant from Indian women’s team.
Though India women lost the match, there were players who were quite impressive. Smriti Mandhana was in her exemplary form as she scored her 7th T20 International half-century off 24 balls, fastest half-century for Indian Women team. Smriti smashed 3 boundaries and 7 sixes in her marvelous 34-ball knock. And Deepti Sharma, Radha Yadav, and Poonam Yadav claimed a wicket each for the team.
Indian team ODI captain Mithali Raj lost her ranking spot to the New Zealand captain, Amy Satterthwaite, who has reached the No. 4 position surging up to 10 places.
As the second battle between the two teams will be conducted on Feb 8th at Eden Park, Auckland at 7:30 AM, all the cricket fans are geared up and are expecting the best out of the upcoming fierce face-off.
